The Vice President of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), based in Thailand, said that the Agricultural Development-led Industrialization (ADLI) strategy implemented in Ethiopia is helping the country to register development strides within a short period of time.

Institute Vice President Professor Sudip K. Rakshit told WIC that the agricultural policy being implemented in Ethiopia has benefited the rural people in the country.

Remarkable achievements are being obtained in the country due to the government’s effort in encouraging farmers to use new technologies and agricultural inputs so as to improve their livelihoods.

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A new mango variety for juice production is to be imported from India. Dennis Mbabali, an agronomist with Britania Allied Industries, the firm behind the project, said Alphonse mangoes are good for mango juice production, but are not grown here. This follows research by the National Agricultural Research Organisation, Britania Allied Industries and the National Agricultural Advisory Services.

“We have carried out research and found that these mangoes can grow well here,” he said. The mangoes, Mbabali said, take less than two years to mature and produce high yields with tasty and fibreless fruits. Ajay Gupta, Britania’s general manager of juice production, said the company spends over sh600m on importation of Alphonse mango pulp from India. “The Government feels this money should be used to purchase mangoes locally,” he said.

Caroline Omale, a senior agronomist, said they were training farmers countrywide on how to grow the mangoes. “We have set up demonstration farms in Kawanda and Mukon districts,” she said.

Source: allafrica.com

Mr Lawrence Othieno, a resident of Magada Village in Nagojje Sub County is a vanilla and red bud chilli farmer. “These crops have kept me employed and the entire family and our income is promising. I have been able to educate my children in good schools and built a house because I always have a ready market for my crops,” he says as he leads me to his vanilla plantation.

Mr Otheino cultivates on a five-acre plot of land and earns Shs1,200 per kg of fresh red bud chilli. He expects to sell over 20,000 kgs of vanilla to Coetzee Natural Products at Shs6,000 per kg this year. A proud Othieno says that since 2004, he has depended entirely on his farm, on which he also grows coffee. His only challenge is fighting crop diseases.

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The Western Cape’s agricultural body, Agri WesCape, says the heavy downpours experienced over the past few weeks have not had as much an effect on wheat farmers as it has on their deciduous fruit counterparts. Agri WesCape’s Carl Opperman says farmers in the Cape are better off than those in the Southern Cape and Overberg who are still battling extremely dry conditions. Opperman says in the Swartland there are certain areas that are very wet at the moment. He says luckily the wheat is in a far stage of development and they do not foresee any great losses there.

However, deciduous fruit farmers in certain parts of the Western Cape raised concern that the heavy rainfall experienced this past season may have a negative impact on their harvests. Opperman says the problem is that the orchards are soaked at the moment, making it difficult for farmers to get to the blossoms which eventually form the fruit. He says the rainfall is not spread evenly across the Western Cape, resulting in flooding in some agricultural areas and severe drought in areas like the Karoo.

Despite falling export volumes, the South African group has seen revenue and profit growth during the first half of 2008

In South Africa, the Capespan Group has recorded a dramatic increase in revenue during the first half (H1) of 2008 despite its export volumes declining by just under 5 per cent.

Capespan said that its revenue increased by 16.7 per cent from R890m (€75.3m) to R1.04bn (€87.9m), mainly due to the performance of the group’s fruit division.

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